Andrey Koumanin talks about the blacksmith profession, his art, his family, and his inspirations.
What happens inside a blacksmith shop? How does he create tools, sculptures, and Judaica? Is blacksmithing an art or a craft? Why is blacksmithing a Jewish art?
We will also hear about his great-grandfather, Yakov Kagan-Shabshai, who collected Jewish art in the early 20th century. The collection included works by Chagall, Falk, Lissitzky, Mane Katz, Issachar-Ber Ryback, and others; learn how iron sculptures became book illustrations, how he created characters from the works of Shakespeare, Babel, Meir Shalev, Schlomov, and Shenderovich; and how blacksmithing can convey the tone of the book and the author; and also about choreography in metal.
Andrey’s grandmother was Vera Shabshai, a Jewish choreographer and dancer in Moscow in the 1920s. We will learn about her art, the masterpiece performance “Aleph,” costumes, and music, and the affects they had on him.
*At the end of the lecture, a guided tour of the museum will take place in Russian.
Image at the top of the page: Andrei Komanin, photographer – Mikhail Pesov
